Folio 157

St. Leo III, 795-816

printed p. 125 · pdf p. 157

of humility, by which He was made obedient to the Father even unto death [Phil. 2, 8].

[From "Capitulari"]

314. (1) . . . In the beginning of the chapters there arose the question concerning the impious and abominable heresy of Elephandus, Bishop of the see of Toledo, and of Felix of Orgellitana, and of their followers, who, thinking wrongly, asserted adoption in the Son of God; the most Holy Fathers, who previously rejected all these, have unanimously protested against this and they have determined that this heresy must be thoroughly eradicated from the Holy Church.

ST. LEO III 795-816

COUNCIL OF FRIULI1 796

Christ, the Natural, not the Adopted2 Son of God

[From the Symbol of Faith]

314a. Neither was the human and temporal nativity absent from the divine and eternal nativity, but in one person of Christ Jesus true Son of God and true Son of man. Not one Son of man and another of God . . . not the supposed Son of God, but true; not adopted, but His own, because never was He alien from the Father because of the human nature which He assumed. And so in each nature we confess that He is the true and not the adopted Son of God, because unconfusedly and inseparably, man having been assumed, one and the same is the Son of God and the Son of man. By nature Son to the mother according to humanity, however, true Son to the Father in both natures.3

  1. Friaul. ↩

  2. Msi XIII 844; ML 99, 294. ↩

  3. Leo XIII accepted the profession of faith offered by Nicephorus, Patriarch of Constantinople, in the year 811, according to which God "also preserved the virgin who supernaturally and ineffably had given birth; after the bringing forth, her virginity according to nature in no part being changed or destroyed." [MG 100, 186 B]. ↩